


In Spy Movies, They Call it the "Honeypot"

by Nooneisgonnashipmyships



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Altean Colony (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Humor, Canon compliant (to an extent), Canonical Character Death, Dubious Morality, Hunk (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Hunk (Voltron)-centric, Implied Lotor/Ven'tar, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Lotor (Voltron)-centric, M/M, Minor Character Death, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, POV Hunk (Voltron), POV Lotor (Voltron), Pining Lotor (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 04, Pre-Season/Series 05, Sad Hunk (Voltron), Sad Lotor (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28540143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nooneisgonnashipmyships/pseuds/Nooneisgonnashipmyships
Summary: Lotor expected many things when he first surrendered to the Coalition. The hand cuffs, the prison cell, the interrogations. All within his expectations.If, however, Lotor was forced to pick something that surprised him, it would have to be the surprising attractiveness of a certain Yellow paladin.In Lotor's defense, when an attractive alien is blatantly trying to seduce you, one cannot help but be a little tempted.
Relationships: Acxa & Ezor & Lotor & Narti & Zethrid (Voltron), Allura & Coran & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro, Hunk & Lotor (Voltron), Hunk/Lotor (Voltron)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	In Spy Movies, They Call it the "Honeypot"

Lotor had expected many things when he offered an alliance to the Coalition. Having his ship shot down was one of the first things, but thankfully the rebels were as opportunistic as he was and agreed to his deal. The handcuffs, the suspicious glares, and being lead into what he presumed was the most secure cell they had, came as no surprise to him. A tad annoying perhaps, but Lotor would have been disappointed if the greatest enemies to the Galran Empire were so naive as to trust him immediately. Pumping him for information came next. The Princess and the Black Paladin had never threatened him with torture, which was a bonus, but Lotor wouldn't allow them to do so in the first place. He would prove himself to be the 'trustworthy ally' he was willing to be. Despite beginning with the safest of missions and the most precise descriptions of security measures, the glares remained constant. Lotor remained in his small, white, cell.

Perhaps he has been too good a prisoner. Rather than gaining their trust as he had hoped, the Prince may have appeared to be slowly baiting them into a trap. After all, how else could one explain this blatant attempt of trying to get the Prince’s guard down? The soft-spoken words with surprising tenderness. The warm, freshly-cooked meals that were so unlike the sustenance packs he grew up on. The fact that the team chose the member most conventionally attractive to Galra, but yet was also alien enough to be considered "exotic".

The Yellow Paladin was seducing Lotor.

The Prince had not realised this at first, so he could not deduce when this plot began. Other than his interrogators, only the young man and Coran ever came down to see him, which was only to deliver his meals. Initially, it was just the older Altean, but gradually, the Paladin came down. At first, it was because "Coran was busy." Then he "Drew the short straw". (Assumably, humans use art competitions to divide menial labour. Not the strangest custom Lotor had come across, but it seemed impractical.) When the Prince began to get used to his presence, it must have initiated the next stage of the plan; absolutely exquisite cuisine. 

"It's probably not good for you to be living on food goo. Not for your tastebuds at least. Here's a little something I whipped up for you." Ha! Feigning concern for another's wellbeing? Most Galran half-breeds stop falling for that when they are still children, and Lotor was no different. And do the paladins honestly expect him to believe that the Yellow one went out of his way to whip a creature to death? True, hunting an animal and serving it to a potential suitor is a classic romantic gesture, but the practice fell out of favour a few thousand years ago. Perhaps Coran or the Princess suggested it; something grand, to knock the Prince off his feet. However, it does lose the romantic effect when it is forced on one in a prison cell. Perhaps they thought the taste would make up for that. 

Because, by the Ancients, Lotor could not stop eating the other’s cooking.

And the Paladin looked, so, quizzacking happy about that. With that stupidly wide smile... Soft looking hair that one can brush their fingers through... Bright eyes with white sclera that made his unusual brown eyes pop... Big, strong jaw with, bright white teeth that, while not sharp enough to draw blood could leave impressive bruises on skin... A muscular body that could easily overpower anybody, and yet so soft-looking that Lotor felt he could sink into...

BUT! But. One does not live for ten thousand years falling haplessly in ~~love~~ infatuation with the enemy. He was stronger than any member of the Coalition could even begin to-

"Hey, Lotor! It's lunch ti- wait, is everything alright? You look stressed. Did you have another nightmare?"

Quizzack.

And there was the man in question. With such an honest expression on his face, so rare in Galran society. The Paladin had come in with a plate of something sinfully delicious for lunch again. He did not continue his task of feeding the Prince. Instead, he looked at his prisoner with the expression of an infant yupper looking at their owner in confusion. ( ~~It was confusion, not worry, not truly. There is no one to be concerned about Lotor. Not anymore~~ ). Lotor had straightened his back, he could not risk showing his seducer any more weakness than he already had. 

"I am fine Yellow Paladin, I was merely... lost in thought." He will _not_ lose control of the situation, of this pseudo-alliance, of what little he still has.

"Okay, firstly? For the millionth time, just call me Hunk-"

Lotor cannot, he cannot have the Paladin become any closer than he already has. ~~Lotor knows how... vulnerable he is now, having lost his camaraderie with his generals.~~

( ~~The only people that care about him now are half-way across the universe with no way to contact him, and they would leave him too if they knew the truth...~~ )

"-and secondly, I know we're like, kind of enemies, kind of not, but, I don't know, I feel like we've bonded over the past few weeks. Ah, I mean movements."

The Yellow Paladin was so clumsy with his words, really, who in the right mind would fall for him?

"I-i just feel like, we could, I don't know, talk about it?" The human gave the Prince a hopeful look. "Sure, there will probably be a lot of things that you've been through that I couldn't even imagine. Especially if it's really alien-y, but," he paused for a moment, stared at the plate he was holding as if it could suggest what to say next, "Sometimes it... helps, having someone to talk to."

Lotor should have shaken his words off like he usually did. 

"Why?"

"Why...? I don't know, but like, talking to Lance always-"

"No, what I mean is, why offer? You said it yourself, we are not true allies yet. You and your team must think the worst of me, you..." _Do not make any sense_ , he wants to say. "While we both want to bring peace to the universe, you struggle to believe it," He has had to sacrifice so much, so many, for something that feels further away every day. ~~It is not as if he could stop _now_ , for if he stops now, then all those deaths would be for nothing. But if Lotor was successful, it would be easier to explain, they would understand, and everything would finally be alright-~~

"Yeah, yeah, you're right." The other man admitted. "I guess... the little I can read from you, and believe me, it is really hard to read you, makes me think that, you're not used to people hearing you out, or giving you a fair chance." Lotor's jaw tensed. If ~~Hunk~~ , the Paladin had said this when they first met in person, when the Prince was freshly abandoned, had two dislocated arms, and flew dangerously close to the sun, he may have whimpered. 

"I've heard from some Blade members that half-Galra are discriminated against by, basically everyone, and that's probably going to be worse for you, 'cuz your dad's Zarkon." Lotor could almost laugh if it were not for the tightening of the inside of his throat. Was that overly-long sentence not the crux of his existence? Of what bought his generals' loyalty?

"What I really mean is- and, this is probably really selfish of me to say..." Ah-ha! Lotor was dizzy with relief. Finally, the man that had been plaguing his thoughts will reveal his true, treacherous motives. Something that was actually familiar to Lotor, something that he had spent most of his life getting used to-

"I don't want to be, just another thing or person that hurts you, in a long line of other things -or people- that have hurt you."

Lotor's whole body jilted.

Lotor jilted, and one would have had to be blind to have missed it.

Hunk had finally stopped speaking but looked alarmed. The food on the plate might have gone cold by now.

"What if you do not like it?" Lotor could not remember the last time his voice shook like this. ( ~~He can, it was when he was pleading for the life of the planet once promised to keep safe, for the first friends he had ever made, for his first love~~ ).

"What if you do not like the things you hear? The things I have done, either by force or by choice. For the universe or my survival. What keeps me up every night. What made me come to you?"

When Lotor spoke about "you" it technically meant the Coalition as a whole, but at that moment, through the glass, all he was thinking about was Hunk's rare brown eyes.

Hunk did not answer initially, looking for the right response as he would an Altean tool in his makeshift workshop in the castle.

"I won't lie to you Lotor. I honestly don't know. It will probably depend on what you tell me."

It was not what he wanted to hear, but it was a better response than he was expecting, and Lotor did appreciate the honesty above all else.

"What I can say is, if your gonna be straight with me right now, I'll hear you out, all the way to the end."

A funny feeling went through Lotor's body. His shoulders were lighter. As if there were a great weight on top of his already-heavy armour, and they were both finally removed. At the same time, there was a sinking feeling in his stomach. Like he had swallowed all the rocks in an asteroid field.

"Okay." The exiled Prince shuffled from foot to foot. As if that were the secret to regaining every ounce of strength and resolve he once had. 

"Okay."

++++++

Hunk had finally returned, after spending an inordinate amount of time at Prince Lotor's cell. The other's would have guessed that perhaps he had stayed until their prisoner finished his meal, but Hunk had returned without a plate.

"Is everything okay buddy?" Lance called out. He, the other paladins, and Coran had been in the lounge area since they finished their mission that morning and decided to take a well-deserved break. 

Hunk looked at Lance, opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He looked away again, apparently having given up finding the right thing to say.

"Did Lotor say something Hunk?" Shiro asked, with a mix of concern but also a business-like approach. Had Hunk managed to learn something that he and Allura couldn't get out of him before?

"I- yeah. Yeah, he did." Everyone could see the grim, queasy feeling in their fellow Paladin's face, but gave him the space he needed to collect himself.

Squaring his shoulders, having finally decided what to say, the Yellow Paladin turned to face Allura and Coran.

"There are still Alteans out there." Before the two could react, Hunk began a rapid-fire recount, "Lotor's half-Altean. When he discovered that, but before he was exiled, he started looking for other Alteans, the ones who were, or descended from, the ones that were off-planet when Altea was destroyed." Allura was opening and shutting her mouth, at a loss for words. And Coran's hand had frozen from where it was in the middle of twirling his moustache. 

"He created this, colony-planet thing, in a really dangerous part of space where no one could find them, and he kept looking for more even after Zarkon kicked him out." Hunk was sure that the rest of his friends were having similar reactions to Allura and Coran. It probably would have been better if Keith was here to hear this as well, but the young man didn't think he could hold all this in for much longer.

"Apparently things were going good for a while but then-" it was here that Hunk realised he would need to backtrack a bit. "Okay so, Lotor created his comet-ore ships because he wants to break into the quintessence field surrounding the universe to harvest it. He thinks that, if he can supply the empire with limitless energy, he could talk them out of conquering everything and that would end the war." 

Allura had regained the ability to make sound, but all she could get out was "Ba!" Coran may have stopped breathing. Hunk still refused to look at the rest of his friends' faces because it would have all been too much.

"This is where things get... bad." Because no matter how much admitting this part hurt Lotor, and the fact that the Yellow Paladin was more sorry for him then he probably should have been...

Well, this is probably what happens when you go ten thousand years without therapy, and your dad is a genocidal dictator.

"At some point, Lotor felt like the progress he was making was too little, and too slow." Hunk wished he could pretend that this next part did not happen, it would make all these weird feelings stop. "He found out that... in some Alteans, they had a stronger connection to quintessence..." He clenched and unclenched his fists. "And he realised that if he... if he could harvest their quintessence," Gasps filled the room, Coran was finally breathing again. "If he could harvest their quintessence, which is somehow, _superior,_ to the quintessence he was using before, he could accomplish more and get to that universal peace quicker."

"Instead of, I dunno, maybe asking the aging population to take one for the team..." And this was where Hunk's own exasperation and hurt was coming in. "He told the Alteans, who _trusted him_ , that there was a mysterious _second colony_ that nobody was allowed to communicate with." He wasn't looking at anyone any more, just pacing the floor and unable to hide his hurt. "So he set up a test to find the _super-special_ Alteans to bring them to the fake second colony to harvest their life force!" A ripping sound came from the lounge. Then the smell of burning fabric. Hunk could see that Allura had ripped the lounge with her fingernails from the corner of his eye. The burning smell must have come from Shiro accidentally activating his hand on his part of the lounge.

"So now, he's _desperate_ to get his plan working, because then all the betrayal and sacrificing people's lives would be for nothing!" Hunk was huffing and puffing like he just finished a dangerous mission. He focused on that rather than the tears gathered in his eyes or the ones he saw in Lotor's when the younger man left him. "Not that he said how he was planning to _explain_ where the second colony went at the end of his master-plan. Or how he was going to integrate them back into the universe because that would mean getting them off that death trap of a planet while simultaneously finding homes for all the Galra..."

"Hunk!" Pidge cried out, and finally, finally, Hunk went to look at the damage the news caused.

Allura was staring blankly at the ceiling, muttering to herself, but was getting progressively more angry-looking with every tick. Coran was crouched over, hands running through his hair. Lance was in-front of both of them, trying to offer what little support he could, and seemed to be succeeding the most with the male Altean. Pidge was standing up from the lounge looking at Hunk with a desperate look in her eye. Shiro was still sitting, robot hand clenching burned fabric, but the hand itself was not glowing. He seemed to be considering what to say next, so Hunk waited for him.

"Hunk," Shiro finally spoke, "How did... how did you get him to tell you all this?"

Shiro's eyes met Hunk's. Pidge's had never left. Lance looked over his shoulder at him. Coran raised his head as Allura lowered her's. All were now facing Hunk.

The Yellow Paladin did not know when this… _thing_ between them started. From when Lotor's ship was shot, until he walked in with handcuffs, and even when Shiro and Allura started interrogating the Prince, he didn't see himself having any special relationship with the other. But then "feeding the prisoner" became another one of his jobs. The more he started looking at Lotor, the more he started _really_ looking at him. His controlled expression and vocal tone. The way he assumed the worse was going to happen to him yet shrugged it off. The face he made the first time he tried his cooking, the unhidden shock and joy in his eyes before immediately calling it "just fine". The way his body seemed to straighten, his eyes attentive whenever Hunk brought food afterwards. Then it was whenever they talked, mainly when Hunk rambled about whatever project he was working on (nothing too incriminating of course). He saw the alien Prince as the other was amid nightmares with blood-curdling screams, yet when he awoke, acted as if nothing was amiss. 

And finally, today, when Lotor looked at him with such a specific emotion that the Paladin could not hope to name. When the Prince's voice shook, graduating to full-on weeping as he confessed his sins. How the gigantic half-Galra seemed to shrink at the Paladin's feet, looking like the scared young man in way too-deep over his head that Hunk saw in himself. How Lotor made him feel horrified, compassionate, shocked, and weirdly heartbroken. How all Hunk could do was keep his promise, give Lotor his cold food, and walk out.

"I guess I'm a better interrogator than I thought." He huffed weakly.

**Author's Note:**

> ...So, do you think Lotor has a better chance of redemption since he told the truth at the beginning?
> 
> Weird thing is, when I first got the idea, it was supposed to be a short comedy (a dark comedy, but comedy nonetheless), where Hunk was cluelessly seducing Lotor, and Lotor, the helpless bisexual, confessed everything to him. The last line that Hunk says was supposed to be the punchline of the fic.
> 
> I think it was when I wrote the line "The Yellow Paladin was so clumsy with his words, really, who in the right mind would fall for him?" that I realised this had turned into a different fic. I think it was here I realised that Lotor had already fallen for Hunk first, and was now trying to convince himself it was all a ploy as a defence mechanism. The characters really took a life of their own.
> 
> After that, the more I wrote, the more I realised I couldn't end things the way I originally intended, with the "dark S6 reveal" coming from a panicked Hunk who was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. 
> 
> I realised a part of me wanted the romance to be sincere between the two of them, even if it was just a fragile thing, barely born. Even if any future they could have had seems pretty hopeless right now. 
> 
> Good thing this is just a oneshot, so I don't have to think about any of that. :P


End file.
